bloobird
by Mirakuru Rein
Summary: SOMEWHAT REVISED NOW! :D …and like so many misspellings, we fail to correct them. Sai centric! So if you want Sai!love, you've come to the right place.


_bloobird;_

_(-his name is-) Bloobeard_

_;;mirakuru rein_

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_x.o.x.o._

_--- _

But whenever the heart seems to fail, the face makes up for it. Sai has learned this (a textbook probably, no, something he's heard) and thinks it's applicable. It's common sense, of course – not anything, _he would know,_ since his heart has never properly started up before. In fact it could be said that his heart _never did have the chance to fail _– this and this alone in itself bothers Sai just – a – little – bit. It's like history rewinded itself to that moment and said _what – did – you – just – say?_ And then the painful rehashing of tales (tails? maybe nine) spews out uncontrollably again. And Sai just finds himself uncontrollably shaking.

---

Of course Sai is the artist, Sai is the artist of the group like Sakura's the medic of the group and Naruto's the who-knows-what of the group (oh, like the number one hyperactive, unpredictable ninja? …of the group) and Yamato's the balance…er of the group and even though he's like Sai and not a part of the original team, and Kakashi is the conman of the group. Yes, it all seems to fit and nudge in beside their lives, square-cut pieces to a circular puzzle. It makes sense that Sai is the artist – doesn't it? – that he would be the one to paint – black marks on white landscape – that he was _monochrome _and_ didn't have a heart because his heart was lost to the strings of time? _(Or maybe he painted it out so that there's none left, but there was one to begin with.)

At this point Sai just closes his eyes and wishes his mind wasn't so cluttered with thoughts. What was the use of thoughts anyway – when you didn't have feelings to accompany them?

---

…And then one day Naruto said, "Blue."

Sai looked up from staring at his knees. "Excuse me?"

"The sky is blue. It looks nice, doesn't it?"

He didn't respond, but his pulse pounded faster and faster.

---

The first time Sai truly saw _red _was luscious drops of blood on fresh, powdered snow.

_His _blood.

It sounded ridiculous to him (almost like a dessert, really) but he was going to die, a member of Root – the position engraved in his heartless heart forever (it beat but did not live). Something then – maybe a gear in his mind – or just for a split second – a thoughtless _feeling? _– just clicked. (Bang.) He got up from his knees and shoved his fist into his opponent's head, huffing, breathing, his fingers raw from trying so hard.

When he realized what he had done (oh for heaven's sake you had a _kunai _in your hand, a fucking _kunai_), his best friend was already dead. (_Oh stupid stupid stupid stupid motherfucker, son of a –) _He calmly wiped the smile off his face (heart) as Danzou congratulated him on passing his final exam.

(By the way, you _are _heartless (as in no heart, you have none, right?))

---

And so the cycle began.

---

In Sai's mind, everyone is a perfect, four centimeters by four centimeters, square box. Everyone in this world is assigned a color. Naruto is orange, Sakura is pink, Kakashi is gray, Yamato is brown, the lost Sasuke is blue, and Sai is…black and/or white.

_(see checkboxes filled in with crayon)_

He's glad he can be two colors at the same time, but in the end, they're not really colors after all. (Just absence of light.)

---

He was just like the Tinman, he decided.

Ignorant, broken pieces put together into a functional being, clawing, begging for some semblance of a beating organ. In other words, they both wanted –_ needed – _a heart.

Sai stared at the flickering screen, the images illuminating his pale face. This was his life – his story – his life story – told in a mere few struggles of words, and at the same time, he can't really understand. Déjà vu doesn't exist in this world - not in this world, not in the next, not even with (his) past (however-many-cat-like) lives.

"Weren't you frightened?"

"Frightened? Child, you're talking to a man who's laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe... I was petrified."

He laughs out loud to himself, but then doesn't really understand why he did.

---

"Sakura-san," he said one day, speculating on why the stars sparkled in the first place, "why do you think one…laughs? Is it because the man in question finds the object of interest amusing? Or is a haute expression of arrogance that could only be truly communicated through a gleaming pair of eyes?"

She blinked once, twice, and didn't really understand the need for that question. "It could be either, Sai…depending on the way he laughs, and on the way his face looks, or the motive….Say he just heard a funny joke or saw something really funny, like in a movie. Then it would be because he found it funny. Now say if he's a strong, but evil, person, standing over a weak person he's just crushed…now that would be an expression of arrogance, something like a 'haha, you're gonna die soon, so I'm gonna laugh at you.'" She looks at him with a confused face to see if he comprehended her words. "Something like that."

But he wasn't even listening at all. He was drawing, a black-and-white monochrome sketch this time, scribbling madly away. His hand was dusted in a thick layer of charcoal, his arm moving in all kinds of unimaginable ways and speeds.

Sakura smiled, a sad,_I-suppose-even-if-he-was-listening-he-wouldn't-have-got-it-anyway_-type smile. "Oh well."

But of course he understood.

---

One thing could have so many meanings. Take this:

---

Scenario One.

A man stands over a bloodied, dead man with a bloodied kunai, repeatedly stabbing the lifeless body like the devil possessed.

Choice A, he could be a valiant hero and be ruthlessly getting revenge for the pain and suffering caused by the one he is killing – the antagonist, the "bad guy."

Or B, he could be a traitor, killing a countryman, a teammate, a _friend, (maybe even (gasp) a BROTHER.) _In this case, the man would be the heinous one, and should be punished a hundred, no, a thousand times over.

This is what society thinks. Sai just thinks that somewhere, maybe, someone in the world, because of events A or B, might be crying.

---

He learned what crying is from his newfound "friends," _tomodachi._

_Crying is when you feel so hurt and sad the gods have absolute pity on you and let you borrow some rain._

Rain, huh. Rain that might never go away, says Naruto's eyes, but how can Sai ever be expected to read that.

---

"_Why is Sasuke so important to Naruto anyway?"_

_(badumpbadump)_

"_No, I don't really understand it."_

_(badumpbadumpbreathebreathe)_

"_It means…I wasn't really sure of what kind of face to make…when my brother died."_

_(badump badump – heart breaks)_

Sai wakes up and sits up and starts taking the nearest wall and banging his head against it.

"Why is it that—" (thumpthump) "—no matter how much I think about it—" (thumpTHUmp) "—these WORDS just don't mean anything to me?" (thumpthumpBANG)

For the first time, he cries for the pain, because he just gave himself a headache, possibly a migraine, and a very bad bruise in the forehead that might affect his judgment for weeks.

---

Sai doesn't care if its three AM in the morning – or four – because what does time matter anyway? (time is...however much you have on this earth to spend? Sai isn't sure of this new equation) He frantically finds his cassette tape – _The Wizard of Oz – (oh, but he couldn't really do any magic anyway!) – _and shoves it into the VCR. He digs through his trash bin full of useless papers to find the remote to press the "PLAY" button – he threw it in there last week he saw the movie when it ended and he didn't know what else to do.

The first part of the movie is black and white and then _(fastfowardfastfoward) _taken up by a windstorm _(fastfowardfastfoward) _is thrown into a Technicolor dancefloor.

_(fastfowardfastfoward)_

"As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don't know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable."

"…But I still want one."

_(does it matter if he can do magic or not? we. are. all. …human.)_

_--- _

"Naruto, do you want an unbreakable heart? Is that the thing you are looking for after Sasuke left?"

The boy in question with bright blond hair and the eyes of the ocean smiles, smiles, then_ laughs. (is he amused at something?) _

"No, Sai….I actually…don't. I want a heart that can be broken at any possible moment…one that will maybe, someday, be so broken that someone will take it in and fix it for me…"

He pats his chest and winks.

"But I've already got it.

_So I'm okay."_

_--- _

_(fin)?_

_--- _

A/N: Ahh….my first Sai fic! I hope you've enjoyed his confusing internal ANGSTY struggle, heehee, because I sure did. -smiles- Dedicated to Jeff and Kashi-chan (who are actually the same person), who said this fic had no plot and sucked like (fill in nasty word). Haha, okay, so he didn't add in that second part, I did for my own self-righteousness. xDD

Anyhoo, if you _did _enjoy the fic, please leave a little note of gratitude (called a review) on your way out. Thank you!

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_-xoxo_

_--- _

More random A/N: B-T-W, an explanation: The title of this fic is "bloobird," the subtitle is "Bloobeard." This is all because a man named Kurt Vonnegut wrote an amazing book called _Bluebeard_, a novel about a painter who is a war veteran and confused about life and such. (You should read it, it's good. In fact, read all of Kurt Vonnegut's books, because his books are simply amazing, except for Cat's Cradle, since I didn't really like that one. :/) So I thought it would be applicable to this fic because after all, both Sai and the main character are artists and all. Eheh. -smiles-


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